


Coffee for Carlos

by Imphiknight (cuddlesEnsue)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Coffee, Gen, Vaguely sentient coffee makers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 11:58:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5416070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesEnsue/pseuds/Imphiknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos looked at the coffee maker.</p>
<p>The coffee maker looked back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee for Carlos

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this one day during last year's Nanowrimo. Finally got round to proofreading. First fanfiction I have posted in six years.

Carlos looked at the coffee maker.

The coffee maker looked back.

Carlos was at a loss to explain how exactly he knew the coffee maker was looking at him. After all it didn't have eyes, or a camera, or any sort of light detecting functions science could explain, but all the same, he was sure it was watching him.

The coffee maker was also listening, he was certain of it, not just listening, but listening attentively, waiting eagerly for him to speak. Once again, no scientific explanation for why he felt this, just he was sure that was what was happening.

He'd only come out of the lab into the kitchen for a drink. They'd only been here a day, and already he had a list 50 pages long of things he wanted to study further. In fact.... he mentally added 'coffee makers' to his list. He really hadn't been lying earlier when he'd said Night Vale was the most scientifically interesting community he'd ever visited.

And speaking of that... maybe he should speak of it. Since the coffee maker seemed to be waiting for something, and it certainly wasn't for the water to heat up, since the blinking green light on it's front clearly indicated that there was no need to wait. But yet, placing his cup and pressing the button on it's front had achieved little. Despite the temptation to take the coffee maker apart to see if he could fix it, perhaps he could try a more.... Night Valian way of solving the problem

Carlos blinked, and hesitantly cleared his throat.

“Uh... hi.” he started uncertainly. Oral communication was never his forte, and having to uphold a conversation by himself was surprising daunting. Of course, added to this was the fact that if it didn't work, and his team overheard him talking to inanimate objects, he might never live it down. He kept his voice quiet. Yet somehow, even despite his shaky start he sensed the coffee maker perk up somehow. Without actually moving at all.

“We found an interesting house today,” he starts, falling back on his research as he is prone to do in the awkward silences that plague most of his conversations. “It doesn't actually exist. It seems like it's there, I mean you can see it when you look at it, and it's right between two identical houses. Yet... sometimes you can't see it, when you're not quite looking, when it would only be in the corner of your eye. And our machines say it's definitely not there. I couldn't persuade any of my team to try the doorbell yet though. Considering all we've heard about Night Vale, I'm not surprised no one wanted to risk it.”

He pauses once more, trying to reign himself in from talking in depth about the experiments they'd done so far to prove it didn't exist. Non-scientists, even the coffee making sort, did not like to be bored with the nitty gritty details of the scientific method. Mostly they were interested in results. And if anything had exploded yet.

The coffee machine seems happier, but apparently hasn't heard enough yet to make him his drink. It is still sitting there listening.

“So.. um... apparently I have a stalker now.” he says, not quite sure why this occurs to him as the next topic of conversation, but the thought of it has been preying on his mind since his team reported it to him earlier.

“He works on the radio. I guess if you've been here a while you might have heard him... that is if the lab's previous occupants had a radio in the kitchen. Apparently I met him earlier when we gave our introduction at the town hall. I don't remember what he looks like, so I have no idea whether or not to feel flattered. Mostly I just feel baffled. I mean, what could I possibly have said or done to make such a first impression. But apparently he's in love with me now? How is that even possible? Is he just making it up? I mean, does it makes a dull story about visiting scientists more interesting? But why me?” Carlos can feel himself talking faster and faster, his voice getting more hysterical with every moment.

He stops, and deflates, peering at the coffee maker, which has started whirring enthusiastically. Finally, he thinks, a measurable sign this thing was listening.

He looks down at the machine. “I just... don't really know what to do with this. What does he want from me?”

The machine stops whirring, and after a moments pause, Carlos's periodic table mug begins to fill with coffee.

But not just any coffee, he realises as he watches the liquid flow into the mug. The colour is off... This coffee is being made with milk, not water. The coffee in his mug, apparently a latte, not the filter coffee he's been expecting. The mystery deepens... where is the machine getting access to milk, when he's certain it was water it was heating. Also, it raises the question of why he expected the machine to do anything normally.

The ebb of coffee finally stops with a brief stuttering of foam.

Carlos removed his mug from the machine, with a self- consciously muttered “thanks”. He peers down into the liquid, inwardly debating whether or not it would be safe to drink.

Staring back up at him from the latte's frothy surface, was a distinct shape, carved out with the darker colouring of espresso. The machine was evidently trying to answer his question, because the shape looking back up at him, a beautiful swirl of dark and light, was a heart.

Huh... he thinks, and takes a sip of the coffee. It is warm, tasty and somehow comforting. It reminds him of the coffee shop he's spent some time in during his undergraduate years, desperately fuelling his thesis with caffeine. It is the nicest cup of coffee he has had in a very long time, and he smiles, thanking the machine with another quite murmur as he wanders away to drink it.

 

* * *

 

It is a long time, a year in fact, before Carlos feels daring enough to respond to the advice of the coffee machine, and only when he feels more confident that this is not a deception on Cecil's part. And despite all the ups and downs it took him to get there, he will always be comforted by the knowledge that the coffee machine doesn't make special drinks for anyone else on his team, and in return he had resisted the huge tempatation to take the machine apart and see what makes it work.

The coffee maker likes him best. And so does Cecil, and that's OK.

 


End file.
